August 18, 2007 by Santaduck.

I knew I wasn’t dreaming. Skype functionality has come to the iPhone.
See MacDailyNews and Informationweek.

But the conspiracy theory? Obviously AT&T doesn’t want Skype on iPhone, and neither does Apple, at least not yet until the AT&T deal is done.

So is it coincideence? Just as Skype is kludged onto iPhone, the Skype network goes down worldwide. Software misconfiguration my arse =) I guess they the Skype techs haven’t heard of the concept of “restore from backup”.

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December 7, 2006 by Santaduck.

I recently had to reinstall OS X Tiger over my old damaged installation, and suddenly Photoshop would no longer open files that I double-clicked, or drag-and-dropped onto the Photoshop Dock icon. This had happened before, and I’d forgotten the fix. I found the fix eventually, and here it is: You need the file Adobe Unit Types in Library/ScriptingAdditions/. You’ll find your old one archived in /Macintosh HD/Previous Systems/Previous System 1/Library/ScriptingAdditions.

Oh and I recently wanted to make a QTVR object movie for free, and didn’t see any freeware that was still available, and my QTVRAS installation was but an ancient memory. Well I figured out a way using iMovie and QTVR Edit Object (still available from Apple.com). The catch is that it’s an OS 9 app, so you’ll need Classic mode, but hey it was free. More details next time. Happy holiday shopping to you!

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April 21, 2006 by Santaduck.

Robert Cringley, host of PBS’s Electric Money and former columnist for Infoworld, wrote today in his blog regarding the relationship between OS X and Windows.

One of the most attention-grabbing topics was the possibility of running Windows applications on Apple Macintoshes, without installing Windows XP, and without Windows virtualization:

“I also believe that Apple will offer in OS X 10.5 the ability to run native Windows XP applications with no copy of XP installed on the machine at all. This will be accomplished not by using compatibility middleware like Wine, but rather by Apple implementing the Windows API directly in OS X 10.5…

‘m told Apple has long had this running in the Cupertino lab — Intel Macs running OS X while mixing Apple and XP applications. This is not a guess or a rumor, this something that has been demonstrated and observed by people who have since reported to me.

Think of the implications. A souped-up OS X kernel with native Windows API support and the prospect of mixing and matching Windows and Mac applications would be, for many users, the best of both worlds. There would be no copy of Windows XP to buy…”

Cringley begins by thinking through Apple’s strategy regarding Windows, given its latest moves. He comes to his speculation based upon Steve Jobs’ 1997 $150M deal with Microsoft, where Apple may have obtained some legal rights to the Windows API, which could enable Windows apps directly in OS X.

Granted, Cringley simply makes several speculations and offers these all up as possibilities to think about, but the legal issues and the impact on users as well as the future of Apple are far-reaching.

Read more here: Robert Cringley PBS blogarticle

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April 14, 2006 by Santaduck.

I forgot to mention, we just published a XXXX-load of benchmarks on the new Intel-based iMacs and the MacBook Pro, in comparison with the Macologist staff’s machines, from an iMac G4 all the way up to a quadcore PowerMac G5. The article is HOT apparently– we’ve only had it up three days and it has gotten almost 30K (yes 30,000) unique hits. See the secret is quantity = quality =x. Haha, Actually it was such a bear to do all of these benchmarks, and coordinate the staff, I’m happy to have what we have, and just left it at that, but the FUN part is that I’ve tried to provide crystal clear instructions so that you can run all of the benchmarks yourself. I’d like to do an update soon, as Cinebench got updated (for the 3rd time since we began testing for this article: we had started with CB2003, then we had an internal Universal Binary, then they came out with the UB 9.5, and now they have some OpenGL optimizations), we also had some tips on running a compiled SciMark (rather than relying on Java’s JIT– just in time– compiling), heard about an interesting benchmark called GeekBench(MBP results here), and need to finish up some more rigs on the Photoshop benchmark. Man, the iTunes vs. QT player finding was really neat too…

Go take a look: Macologist’s Intel Mac Benchmark Smorgasbord.

Posted in Hardware, Benchmarks, Apps, Games | No Comments »

January 18, 2006 by Santaduck.

One of the smaller bits of news in the MWSF week was that Google Earth is now officilaly released in beta form, and is available here at the Apple site. I believe the beta, like the unofficial leak, does not work in Panther– Tiger is required. Still I remember when this was all Keyhole, a paid-subscription service for Windows, and I was so tempted to purchase it, but now that Google has acquired it, turned it into a free app, and now ported it to Mac, I’m very pleased indeed.

Misc: So one of the overall reasons Apple went with Intel, instead of say AMD, now is apparent: Core Duo. I found a review of the MacBook Pro vs. current Core Duo Notebooks, it’s worth a read here. Still waiting for more multimedia TV integration and the TiVO killer app, but Apple has some serious momentum going, if you compare things the past few years at MWSF 05 and 04. It’s very promising, but I’m still hoping Apple doesn’t lose its way. They nicely handled the iTunes privacy problem, which looked like it might spiral out of control, but now the new privacy notice is very clear, as well as intstructions to opt out of the ministore (which sends your library information to Apple to compute possible purchases to show you).

And of course we just moved Macologist to a new server, and a new forum system. We’re now vBulletin instead of clunky phpBB with mods on top of mods. We still have a few things to iron out, but it’s doing well, and thanks to Rogue for the evolving slick look of the site. We also just named our Mod of the Year, so read up to look at great mods for a wide range of Mac games!

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December 10, 2005 by Santaduck.

I saw today that uneasysilence.com is hosting a leaked beta copy of Google Earth for OS X. It’s apparently still an early beta and still has lots of XP icons and such. I haven’t seen it yet, although the download pages require you to slog through all the premium options while you search for the Free download link. See for yourself here. I’m sure the link will be taken down within days.

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December 9, 2005 by Santaduck.

In news that really pleased and surprised me, Google is apparently working on a Mac version of its Google Earth application. Think Google Maps, but with more detail, and quasi 3-D rotation, and some skyscraper model information. I love it on my XP machine (remember when it was “Keyhole”?), and the satellite photos frequent have better coverage and better resolution than the satellite source in Google Maps. In other related news, Google maps is also trying out a public transportation map search, initially confined to the Portland, Oregon area (northwest US). It’s currently incompatible with Safari, so you should use Firefox. I haven’t tried spoofing Firefox with Safari however.

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